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Riskier Business

It Looks Like Studios Are Beginning To Think Independently

October 31, 1999|By Mark Caro, Tribune Movie Writer.

For years the going theory has been that the big studios are cranking out increasingly formulaic product, yet here we are toward the end of 1999, and we're reliving that golden film era of the early to mid-1970s.

Well, not quite. Yet such comparisons aren't completely unfounded. Back then the studios, burned by big-budget flops, opened the doors to mavericks such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby and Steven Spielberg, who created groundbreaking works and started lasting careers.

No one can say whether M. Night Shymalan ("The Sixth Sense") or David O. Russell ("Three Kings") will have such lasting impact, yet 1999 is looking like a breakthrough year for independent-minded filmmakers making idiosyncratic, personal films for the studios.

Who'd have thought, for instance, that the often-squeamish Time-Warner would underwrite a film that eviscerates President Bush's Gulf War policy and graphically demonstrates what bullets do to bodies, as "Three Kings" does? Or that in these violence-sensitized times, 20th Century Fox would give David Fincher the go-ahead to make the brutal satire "Fight Club"?

Or that Disney would make a film that rips CBS and "60 Minutes" bigwigs for their journalistic cave-in over an anti-tobacco story, as Michael Mann's "The Insider" (opening Friday) does? (Does this mean Disney will maintain a hands-off policy with its ABC News division?)

The studios also can take credit for such formula-busters as Shymalan's sleeper summer hit that somberly explores a boy's supernatual powers; Sam Mendes' darkly comic, surprisingly spiritual take on suburban malaise, "American Beauty"; David Lynch's shimmering G-rated "The Straight Story"; and Scorsese's ambulance-driver nightmare "Bringing out the Dead."

Spike Jonze's winningly loopy "Being John Malkovich" straddles this category as a studio-supported "indie" boasting an A-list cast. On the flip side, Disney prompted subsidiary Miramax to dump Kevin Smith's upcoming, Catholic-spoofing "Dogma," which eventually was sold to the truly independent Lion's Gate.

Still to come are Norman Jewison's much-ballyhooed "The Hurricane," starring Denzel Washington as wrongly imprisoned boxer Ruben "Hurricane" Carter; and "Magnolia," a reportedly Altmanesque new film by "Boogie Nights" director P.T. Anderson.

These films won't all go down as classics, but they sure beat "Armageddon" and hokey Oscar bait like "Stepmom."

"I don't think since the '70s the studio system has made so many individually interesting films for adult audiences that are challenging, that are different, all that stuff," said James Schamus, who wrote another upcoming, hard-to-categorize studio film, Ang Lee's "Ride with the Devil." "The studios are scared, which has actually been very good for a lot of filmmakers because nobody has the formula anymore."

Vareity editor-in-chief Peter Bart takes a less optimistic view: "This is a time of year where (studios) put out pictures that they don't necessarily think will work. I don't really see any signs that studios are reverting to a '70s sort of approach to things."

In other words, the studios are as blockbuster-oriented as ever, but more of the unconventional projects that typically trickle through the system are gaining attention this year. Still, Bart cited one significant shift: More Hollywood films are being co-financed by overseas production companies, putting the studios less under the gun financially.

"That's making the studios, thank goodness, become a little less risk averse and taking chances on some new filmmakers and not just going down the line with (`Armageddon' director) Michael Bay," Bart said, noting that "The Sixth Sense" and "Fight Club" resulted from such deals.

Then again, Warner Brothers was behind "Three Kings" from the start, and Russell said the studio was "surprisingly" supportive of its political content. "They never really objected to any of that," he said while in town recently, noting that he only had to remove a line involving Michael Jackson and young boys.

Former indie film representative John Pierson said he's encouraged that risk-taking filmmakers such as Russell and Shymalan are being allowed to make the leap from small independent films to big-budget studio projects.

"Every time somebody like David Russell is able to get behind enemy lines, it is like an act of sabotage," said Pierson, who hosts the Independent Film Channel's "Split Screen" film show. "It's great. And when you get George Clooney in it, you can make $60 million with it."